Beer-related travel, at home and abroad, exploring and indulging my passion for beer.

Friday, 19 September 2014

Heavenly Brew - Part One

Kloster Weltenburg's spectacular setting, on the Danube

Whenever there is talk of monastery brewing, one country
always springs to mind, especially in the minds of beer lovers. Belgium of
course, has a rich tradition of monastic brewing, particularly as the country
is home to six of the seven Trappist monasteries. It is also a country where
so-called “Abbey Ales” (beers produced in a secular brewery under licence from
a monastery), are relatively common. However, neighbouring Germany also has a
heritage of monastic brewing which, despite being less well known, in many
cases pre-dates that of Belgium.

During my travels in southern Germany over the past 10 years
I have come across quite a number of largely unknown breweries either directly
attached to a monastery or with still visible former links to one. Their
relative obscurity may well be due to the fact that they haven’t marketed
themselves as vigorously as their Trappist brethren; with most of their
production destined mainlylocal
consumption, and precious little in the way of bottles finding their way into
overseas export markets. Also, unlike the Trappist Breweries in the Low
Countries, there is no umbrella organisation to look after their interests,
fight their corner or to promote their wares as a whole. This however, makes
tracking them down all the more exciting and rewarding.

A glass of monastery-brewed beer

One fairly obvious clue when it comes to looking for
monastery breweries in Germany is the use of the word “Kloster” in the brewery
name. Similar to the English word "cloister” the word means monastery or convent. However, as in
Belgium, there are quite a number of breweries which style themselves as
“Kloster”, but closer inspection reveals either a very tenuous link with a
monastery or abbey, or even a link which may have existed in the past, but
which is no longer there. Most surviving monasteries whether brewing or not,
are located within the state of Bavaria. This is hardly surprising when one
considers that this part of Germany is a staunchly Catholic region. However, even
here many monasteries were secularised during the early 19th
Century, partly as a result of the Napoleonic wars and the determination of
Bonaparte to stamp his authority on territories that he’d conquered. Even when
these institutions were handed back to their rightful owners, any tradition of
brewing which may had existed had often been lost during the intervening years,
and in many casesdid not resume.

For the purpose of this post though I am including all those
German breweries which use the name “Kloster” in their title, as in the vast
majority of cases brewing still takes place in the original monastery buildings
irrespective of whether there are monks, or nuns, living there now!

The Bräustüberl at Kloster Andechs

Kloster Andechs is almost certainly the best known and most
widely available German monastic brewery, and to anyone who has been to Munich
requires little in the way of introduction. Having undergone considerable
expansion in recent years, Andechs beers are now available in other parts of
Germany – they have a flagship pub in Nuremberg and I have drunk them in
Berlin. Their website states they are now available in the United States.

Andechs brew a wide range of pretty decent beers, but to me
they never taste as good as they do at the monastery itself, on top of the Holy
Mountain, over-looking the Ammersee Lake, just outside the town of Herrsching.
My first visit there, back in 2005 was the most memorable, probably because it
was all new to me and I didn’t know what to expect. The ride out from central
Munich to the end of the S-5 Line was pleasant enough, but apart from reading
that there was a footpath up to Andechs, I had no idea of where it started
from.Fortunately the local Tourist
Information office put me on the right track, providing me with a photo-copied
map, and before long I was leaving the town behind and heading up through the
woods to the Holy Mountain. The walk, which was steadily uphill for most of the
way, took around an hour, and I was certainly building up a thirst. On the way
I had passed a few other walkers, but hadn’t really seen that many other
people. When I arrived at Andechs though I just couldn’t believe how busy it
was; where had all these other thirsty punters come from?

Enjoying a beer in the sun at Kloster Andechs

The answer of course, was they came by road; either by bus
or car, and since that first trip all subsequent visits we have made to Andechs
have also been by bus. However, to get that true monastery experience and to
really feel like a pilgrim, make the journey on foot so that you really
appreciate your beer!

If journeying by foot appeals to the pilgrim within you,
then how about arriving at a monastery by boat? This is exactly how my son and
I arrived at the next monastic brewery on the list. Kloster Weltenburg is sited
on a bend on the gorge carved by the River Danube as it makes is way north
towards the ancient city of Regensburg. The setting for this centuries old
monastery must rank amongst the most spectacular in the world, and given this
water-side setting journeying here by boat makes perfect sense. Pleasure boats cruise
down to Weltenburg along the Danube on a daily basis; certainly in summer when
there are several return services each day.

Sailing down the Danube Gorge towards Kloster Weltenburg

The boats depart from the small town of Kelheim, home to the
world-famous wheat beer brewers, Georg Schneider & Co. In order to make the
trip, Matt and I travelled to Kelheim, from where we were staying in Regensburg, via
train and then bus and, after locating the waterside departure point, booked
ourselves a return ticket. The boats which ply up and down the river are
similar to the ones on the Thames. Being a pleasant June day, we sat outside on
the top deck in order to make the most of the scenery which we would soon be
passing through. This being Germany, we could have had a beer or two as we
travelled down, but it was rather too early in the morning for me and, besides,
we’d had a pretty heavy session the night before! Our journey took us past the
impressiveWalhalla Monument, before we approached the entrance to the steep-sided Danube
Gorge. The boat made slow, but steady progress against the fast flowing river, and before long
we were surrounded on both sides by high limestone cliffs, topped with trees.
It wasn’t quite the “Lost World” but it certainly felt like we were cut off
from civilisation.

We witnessed some rather rash local youths jumping off the
rocks and then swimming back to shore; it all looked rather risky given the
swiftly moving current, but presumably they knew what they were doing. Then, as
we rounded a bend we could see Kloster Weltenburg ahead on the left-hand bank.
The ship’s captain slowed our vessel down to enable us to approach the landing
stage and moorings, which were a few hundred yards away from the monastery, and
a five minute walk. Making a careful note of the departure times, we made our
way to the monastery which sits on a spit of land made up of fine white
pebbles, which juts out into the river. Being sited in such a picturesque
setting is not without perils though, as was demonstrated in 2005 when the
monastery was inundated by the disastrous floods which occurred on the Danube that
autumn. Weltenburg's flood defences were also severely tested in 2011.

Monastery church - Kloster Weltenburg

The monastery itself is constructed in Baroque style, but
there has been a monastic community based here since the 11thCentury, and a continuous tradition of brewing ever since In fact Kloster Weltenburg lays claim to being the oldest monastery brewery in the world. These days,
in order to meet increased demand, the brewing of Weltenburg’s paler beers is
contracted out to the Bischofshof Brewery in nearby Regensburg, and the company
also provide technical and sales assistance to the brothers. Weltenburg’s
darker beers though, such as Barock Dunkles and Anno 1050 are still brewed at the monastery. We
were able to sample a few of their draught offerings in the shaded, courtyard beer
garden, where we joined quite a throng of people enjoying their lunch. We sat
and chatted over our lunch of Leberkaas and potato salad, with a group of cyclists who had travelled all the way from Bonn.

Beer garden - Kloster Weltenburg

Afterwards I had a brief look inside the impressive monastery church, which has ceiling frescoes painted by the renowned Asam Brothers, before catching the mid-afternoon boat back to Kelheim. The return journey took half the time of the outward one, as we were now travelling with the swiftly moving current; rather than fighting against it.

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About Me

Sixty years old (just) and married with one twenty-something son, who shows no sign of wanting to
leave home. My interests are many and varied, and whilst beer (and the
enjoyment of it) obviously features high on the list I also enjoy travelling
(particularly when it involves searching out new beers to try), cycling and
walks in the countryside. I dabble a bit in gardening, which at the moment
primarily involves re-landscaping my garden. My other main interests though are
music, especially 70's rock music, and history. I have been a member of CAMRA
since the mid 1970's and have edited a number of local branch magazines. I have
also had published two, now sadly out of date, guides to Kent
pubs. For six years my wife and I also ran our own successful real-ale
off-licence, which as well as selling cask ale to take away by the pint,
offered one of the best selections of bottled beers in the south east. Prior to
taking on the shop, I was an accomplished home-brewer producing a wide range of
full-mash beers; something I intend to get back into in the not too distant
future.